Chapter 19: Petra in Danger, and the Price of Cheerful Recklessness

The fog was still attentive when Maren went inside.

She could feel it against the back of her neck as she pushed through the door — a specific, directed quality of attention, like being watched by something that did not have eyes in the conventional sense but had developed workarounds. She had stood in it for twenty minutes after Aldric's last sentence and the thing beneath the town had not spoken to her, which she supposed was fair, since she had not spoken to it either. They were both, apparently, waiting for the other to begin.

Inside, Aldric was still at the kitchen table. The tea was cold. He looked like a man who had been sitting in the same position since she left and had not noticed, which was probably true. He looked smaller than he usually did, which was alarming because Aldric was not a small man, and the kitchen was not particularly large, and she had grown accustomed to him filling it.